Performancing has officially launched its latest service, Performancing Exchange (PE), in its quest for world blogosphere domination. Basically, it’s supposed to be “…a classifieds style marketplace for the professional blogging community…” where everything from blog auctions, paid blogging stints, partnerships and services can be advertised.

But for the most part (currently at least), it’s a job board for bloggers, and comes right in the wake of some heavy discussion on blogging for hire at the Performancing forums. This concept (job board) isn’t new though, and there are similar (though not very close) alternatives – whether dead, semi-dead, or alive.

And its “newness” and Beta status does show. A quick look shows only about seven posts available so far. But more importantly to me, there’s a lack of an overview or summary kind of listing (think 37signals’ job board) – which I believe will start being a problem when PE takes off. And maybe it’s just me (again), but the Digg-style voting mechanism doesn’t seem to completely fit. It doesn’t make sense to vote on job offers, though voting on blogger resumes and services could be a very interesting feature. I suggest segmentation and/or selective placement of the voting mechanism.

BloggingPro is also a little worried about the “free for now” caveat attached to PE, but given the crew’s already monstrous-levels of patience in the monetisation department, I’m sure it won’t be a (major) problem.

And lest you think I’m all bearish over PE, here’s what I think is great about it. It runs on the simple Drupal interface that the Performancing crew love. As long you know how to blog, you’ll be able to get a classifieds up in minutes.

It’s also backed by a diverse blogger community – with amateur bloggers to probloggers equipped with a range of skill sets – and a crew that understands what it takes to do things right in today’s blogosphere.

All in all, I’m sure Performancing Exchange has a bucket load of potential, but it looks too much like a patch job, and too little like a proper service launch – beta or otherwise.

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